Ryan Blaney’s mind was completely focused on Sunday’s eighth round of qualifying at Martinsville Speedway. But the reigning champion hasn’t forgotten a last-round decision at Homestead last week that guaranteed him a fourth-place finish in the championship.
Blaney took the lead from Denny Hamlin with two laps remaining before heading down the backstretch and the no. Under pressure from Tyler Reddick in the 45 drivers and 2024 drivers. Regular Season Champion. Blaney chose the latter, but Reddick cleared the old tire fence with two laps to go and passed Blaney in turns 3 and 4, stealing the win and ticketing Phoenix. It was a dream, with Reddick clinging to the driver’s seat as Blaney pondered what might have happened in the hours after the race.
“I came home Sunday night and watched it again,” Blaney said. “I rewatched the whole race and rewatched the finish line and fell asleep a little bit toward the end of it. What I mean is, it’s easy to go back and watch it on air or replay it in your mind and think, “Well, if I had done it differently, the outcome would have been different.” But, for example, it is very difficult to make the right decision right now. Make many decisions each turn. And I look at it and talk about it in some scenarios. Whether it’s on the highway or at the end of the race, first or second, you bet. In some cases, you can predict which lane is better, where the car in front will go and where the car behind will go. And sometimes you think it’s right and sometimes it’s wrong. “I guessed wrong where it was going.”
All sports, especially racing, require split-second decisions. Watching the tape again, Blaney wondered why he had chosen the bottom half when it would have been better to be in the same crowd as the home fans and defend the top half. “I can only talk about professional sports because I’m in it and I watch a lot of other sports. And when I watch a football game, I think, “Why didn’t he do that?” In that moment, when you’re that person, that athlete, or living in that era, it’s much harder to make decisions in that moment, in real time, than to sit there and see it from another person. angle on television. You don’t have time to follow the process, think about it and think about all the options. Boom, boom, boom. Everything happens very quickly.
“Right decision, right decision, you can never get 1,000 points. That’s the challenge of sport: can you make the right decision?” And how often do you make the right decisions? In my mind, I look at his low scoring rate and his timing and think, “Okay, I think he can pull the trigger here.” That’s what I decided. He was just trying to pull the cursor and I was sitting down and trying to slide down the road. If he pulls the slider, I can pull under him, or I can go in and say, “Well, I’m going to cut a little bit of the racetrack here, so if he pulls the slider, I might be. outside of it.’” If you draw the picture. You can get around it.’’ It was just the wrong thing to do.”
Instead of having a fun and relaxing day like he did at a tough track like Martinsville, Blaney will now have to fight for the checkered flag if he wants to keep his title defense alive in Sunday’s Xfinity 500 (2 p.m. ET). , NBC, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) enter the race 38 points below the elimination line. The advantage for team no. 12 Penske is that Chase Elliott (2020) and Christopher Bell (2022) proved it is possible with back-to-back wins at Martinsville. Elliott will win the title in 2020, and Blaney himself is a playoff winner at Martinsville, leading him to the title last year.
Sunday will be a physical challenge that Blaney will have to adjust to throughout the weekend, as well as a mental test that could continue the rest of the week and possibly into the season after Homestead plays. “I think the mental aspect is the hardest part of our sport,” Blaney said. “It’s about staying here mentally and adapting to what you have to do week in, week out, week in and week out, now and in the future. So I try not to dwell too much on the past, but to learn from it and move forward.”
